^^for me, it doesnt bother me too much when its steven and amethyst since they're gems so at least there's like an in-universe explanation for why they change sizes sometimes but there were several shots in recent episodes where sadie is just as diminutive as steven which looks WAY off like she's supposed to be an adult

...you know, Mom brought me up on John Wayne movies. Lot of my fundamental primal memories are of me sittin on the couch with Ma of a Saturday, watching 'Rio Bravo', or 'Quiet Man', or 'Stagecoach'. 'Big Jake' or something. But we never watched 'The Searchers' together.

It's a dark, brutal movie. Lots of human ugliness onscreen. Kind of think John Ford was getting through some stuff with this one. He was a real artist, man.

John Wayne plays against type in 'The Searchers'. Ethan is a grim, hateful son-of-a-bitch. Anyone who thinks John Wayne was a bad actor should watch 'The Searchers'. It kind of upset me, the first time I watched it. Good flick. Might be the best western ever (I don't say that lightly).

boo---------------ten thousand evil spiders in a human suit (*spoiler alert--------the spiders all hate each other, and themselves most of all*)

Mission: Impossible - Fallout is the best American action movie since Kill Bill. This is not an exaggeration.

Get your punk ass to the theater right damn now. I don't care what you're doing. At work? Tell your boss it's an emergency. At school? Impromptu film class. Playing basketball? Time out. In the middle of your wedding? Kiss the bride and run down the aisle. On the toilet? Hold it in. In court? Contempt. In jail? Prison break. Locked up in a serial killer's basement? Hit the bastard over the head with the closest blunt object you can find. On your deathbed? Down the strongest medicine they have. Watching a different movie? Tell the projector to pause that ****. This is important. This means something.

I watched Teen Titans Go! to the Movies because I **** love Lloyd Irving and I was not about to pass up an opportunity to see his voice actor in theaters as my other teenage crush.

Also, I went with a friend who I might not see again for literally years because they're about to move overseas, and this friend also loves ToS, so we went in full Lloyd Irving and Kratos Aurion cosplay because **** Y O L O.

It was way more hilarious than I expected. I was losing my **** the entire time. Laughed my ass off, and then we went back to my friend's place and were like "YO WE SHOULD WATCH THE ORIGINAL TEEN TITANS SERIES" aaaand yeah I've been bingeing it ever since.

It's so GOOD. It's so anime but ay I'm a weeb idgaf. All the teenage-friends-with-different-priorities-and-boundaries dynamics are so good, they're all trying so hard, Slade is a creepy ass mofo, god i love all of them, ROBIN ILU BUT NEEDS MORE DEMON FANG.

^I can't divorce Slade's VA in that from Bojack Horseman, which has made the trailers for that film unexpectedly funny to me.

I went to see Ant Man and the Wasp - I hadn't seen the first one, but thankfully it seems I didn't really need any context set up to understand this movie. Glad it had a more self-contained and personal plotline this time around, after all the HIGH STAKES UNIVERSE/WORLD WILL DIE plots it's nice to have something that is still high-stakes but feels like it has motivation other than "save the planet!" driving it. Plus I feel like with quite a few Marvel sequels you usually are either expected to know things from previous films before coming in to watch it.

I didn't expect to like it very much and went to see it because my girlfriend and her dad wanted to see it, but was very pleasantly surprised.

Was babysitting Emmy earlier. Put on morning children's television for her to watch a little whilst puttering about.

You know, I kind of thought I'd plumbed the depths of horror with 'Max and Ruby' and 'Mickey Mouse Clubhouse'. 'Elmo's World' and all. Then, today,
I saw 'Pinkalicious' for the first time, and I caught a glimpse of true eldritch evil. Darkness beyond time or reason. I looked into the void, and it looked back.

Guess these children's shows really are educational.

boo---------------ten thousand evil spiders in a human suit (*spoiler alert--------the spiders all hate each other, and themselves most of all*)

I also recently finished up watching both Durarara and DurararaX2. I'm really picky about what anime I like, but this one really surprised me with just how much I enjoyed it. The writing was really well-done and introduced a lot of characters without watering down their backstory or personalities, and did a great job at sewing all of these character's lives together by the end, culminating in one large climactic event at the end of both DRRR!! and DRRR!!X2. Ryogo Narita did an excellent job with this series.

I re-watched the second Persona 3 movie because I haven't seen it in a while and it's the one that focuses on my favorite arc in the game.

I'm forever going to be salty about the fact that the FIRST Persona 3 movie, Spring of Birth, is a virtually flawless cinematic experience from start to finish; because while I REALLY DO LOVE FUUKA, it's definitely not the most interesting part of the story. Whereas Midsummer Knight's Dream focuses on Ken and Shinji ((and most importantly Koromaru BEST BOY GOOD DOG I LOVE HIM)) and everything about that story is just wonderfully heartbreaking. BUT the second movie has a solid 10-15 minutes overall of painful-to-watch fanservice that bog down the whole experience. Like if the movie started 15 minutes later than it does, at the scene where protag meets Aigis, it would be an objectively better movie. You can SEE the shift in quality, too; some of the scenes look like P4 the Animation quality of garbage, and then you can tell which scenes they actually cared about because for example the first scene with Aigis is drop dead **** gorgeous. I just wish this movie had the same consistent tone and quality the first one did.

Like, I'm totally here for shenanigans breaking up the pace a bit and reminding us that these are just high-schoolers; I think the summer festival did that really well for example. We just didn't need so much damn fanservice guys, come on, please.

Anyway when this movie is good it's GOOD. How many times have I seen this part of the game? 8 billion? And yet I still felt myself choking up a bit. It hits hard. It's just unfortunate that parts of the movie are just cringey to watch.

10000000/10 during the good parts but unfortunately overall has been dragged down to 8/10

okay so I finally watched the last 2 Persona 3 movies (when they were new it was impossible to find them online but now that it's been a couple years it's p easy)

Review of the individual movies:

Falling Down - this is kind of expected considering it's more or less "rising action: the movie", but this is definitely not the most gripping stand-alone installment. It does, however, have the visual and thematic perfection that Spring of Birth did, so I'm super pleased about that. It's a polished movie it's just more setting up the climax than anything else. dat Protag x Ryoji tho

Winter of Rebirth - god this movie was everything I hoped it would be. MY ONLY GRIPE is how Nyx is done in CG??? I think it was an intentional move to make her feel even more creepy-otherworldly, and the camera shots and everything are still stunning and GOD it's still phenomenal and breathtaking... but I was really hoping to see her in drawn glory and this is one of those cases where the promotional art looked marginally cooler than the final product. Everything else was perfect. I loved it so, so much. But....... come on........ :,(

Review of the movie series as a whole:

- I ADORE THE SEASONAL THEMES. Spring of Birth is about forming connections with other people. Midsummer Knight's Dream is about reconciling selfish desires vs duties to society/friends. Falling Down is about dealing with loss. Winter of Rebirth is about facing inevitabilities. They perfectly encapsulate a lot of the game's major themes, and associating each with 4 seasons was a brilliant aesthetic move that just **** WORKS.

- I love how virtually everyone was characterized, including certain changes that were made. Ken's idolization of Shinji made the ensuing tragedy even worse; they gave Silent Protag-Kun a character arc that felt natural given the stoic blank slate they had to work with; social link characters were worked in at relevant points to make the world feel more alive; everyone was just done really well.

- I am still salty that my favorite arc in the game got the weakest movie in the series. It was inevitable because given how they decided to break up the story there's really only like 1 thing that happens in that part of the game, and they did a BANG-UP JOB of that part but the movie overall suffers from some tonal whiplash and way too much fanservice. Falling Down is an example of a movie that had some fanservice but it was **** hilarious the way it was done and worked; Midsummer Knight's Dream made me want to download the movie and delete 10 minutes of it for an objectively better viewing experience. Like the series overall is just so solid and wonderful but I wish I could call the second my favorite because of how amazing the good parts of it are, without also associating some garbage with it too. Like, did the boobalicious teacher from p4 really need a cameo? DID SHE REALLY???

- the only times there were references to in-game UI are to show the passage of time or entry into the dark hour, which i think worked really well.

WOOOO DOUBLE POST bc it has been one HECK of a "binge all of the persona 3 things" sunday.

Soooo I started watching Persona Trinity Soul, specifically because a lot of people don't like it so I need to watch it to feel like a special snowflake when I inevitably like it. ALSO because it's a 10-years-later potential sequel to Persona 3 and if there's one thing I'm a sucker for it's sequels that don't directly rely on their source material to be good because they have ideas of their own.

BOY. HOWDY. First of all I have only seen 14 episodes out of 26 so there's still plenty of weird **** to come I am SURE. But as far as what has happened so far--

- This is the creepiest **** anime I have seen in a long ass while. The next time I see a white feather anywhere I am going to flip my **** because that is some HAUNTED ASS BULL OVER THERE AND I WANT EXACTLY NONE OF ANY OF IT, NO THANKS, BYE #NOPE

- i. LOVE. the dynamics between the main family. so much. their family has been broken and they're working to reconcile and i love all of them so **** much.

Spoiler.

also can i just say that Jun is a bigender icon

Spoiler.

ALSO WHAT THE **** I CANT BELIEVE THEY WENT AND DID THAT TO BIG BROTHER-KUN I AM SO **** SAD AND ANGRY RIGHT NOW

- im really still not sure what the heck is going on with the weirdly orgasmic shadow ******** but i mean alright it's japan, ive seen weirder

- ANYWAY im completely hooked in terms of tone and characters and imagery im just also kind of really confused as to what the literal actual hell is going on tbqh

...it's almost midnight so i resisted the urge to click the next episode bc i distinctly feel that whatever is about to happen next i will be physically incapable of going to bed before i see it through to the end, and id like to get more than 0 hours of sleep for work tomorrow

I **** loved it. The pacing got kinda weird at the end but that's pretty normal for anime that only has a certain # of episodes and has to wrap up their story given what they've got while trying to not throw the atmosphere and mood and everything.

I loved everything about how the story-within-a-story "The Whale's Feather" was used. I liked how different characters had different interpretations of the book, since it's such an ambiguous story, and how that kind of reflects how the Trinity Soul story is clearly intended to be loosely interpreted in the same way. I loved the reveal that

Spoiler.

the reason the last page is so different from the others is because it was painted over, obscured, and changed by Ryou, but the cherry blossoms at the end kind of imply that he was liberated from all that before he finally passed.

I loved how the image itself just set the mood and every time those creepy ass white feathers showed up it sent shivers down my spine. I enjoyed the way the narrative didn't even try to reconcile science and magic and just let them coexist, with "scientific analysis" of the whale's feathers essentially turning up with "we don't know what the **** this is but it's creepy." The Whale's Feather makes this narrative so successful.

In a less obnoxiously academic review, I also just have a lot of feelings about the main family's dynamics. There's not much more to be said other than "watch it and cry with me about this broken family" but anyway I'm really sad about everything guys.

I REALLY loved how dreamlike the whole atmosphere is. I like how it's not really clear what things actually happened and what things were weird trips and whether or not the weird trips had any effect on reality, and since the whole plot is about blurring the lines between consciousness and subconsciousness let's just say they got that point across real heckin well.

I'm definitely still not 100% clear on what actually happened, but I also feel like that's ok? I got the mood and themes it was going for loud and clear tho and I'm okay with that.

kiiinda got some elfin lied vibes at the end though ngl lmao

Soundtrack was phenomenal. My favorite track is literally called "between consciousness and unconsciousness" and it plays during some of the most creepy stays-with-you moments in the series and god it gives me chills but like in a good way.

Some musings:

Spoiler.

I'm still not really sure why ghost-Ayane sometimes appears as a girl and sometimes as an adult? I think it was mentioned that the "girl" part of her somehow ended up in Shin's subconscious? I think she only appears as a girl in front of Shin so it's probably meant to imply that she's representative of his repressed memories...? Or perhaps part of them.

I thought it was interesting how we actually see Apathy Syndrome - in a sense - impacting the main cast. In P3, other than Natsuki, it's kind of something that happens to.... other people. Seeing it even in SHIN in a sense, as well as so many other people, made it feel all the more heartbreaking.

I'm sad about robot girl.

I'M SO SAD ABOUT BIG BROTHER-KUN. I knew he was gonna **** die and then he **** died BUT THEN THE WHOLE SECOND SEASON GAVE ME HOPE BUT THEN **** nope, bye, he's gone off the emo deep end and then when he finally comes back it's bc hes gonna die in the next 5 seconds. what a jerk.

also literally what the **** was the whale even tho like actually

Anyway, I don't know what I expected going into this but from the games in the series I was expecting something way less loose in terms of storytelling and plot. The tone of the games I have played (2: Innocent Sin, 3, and 4), while it varies a lot between each one, is definitely more sci-fi than fantasy where even magical elements have in-universe logic and explanations, and the narratives get very grand in scope. This anime goes WAY back more into the realm of fantasy, feels more like a dream than a cohesive story, deliberately leaves questions unanswered, and is focused more on its own characters than the world at large. The tone-shift was welcome. It didn't feel like a Persona spinoff, it felt like a story that can have a more interesting look at the consciousness/subconsciousness ideas touched on in the games because as an anime it can do weird **** the games can't or won't. I feel like it contrasts and complements the games really nicely but is completely its own thing.

I was expecting a half-baked tries-to-be-the-game-series-but-isn't lackluster story. What I got was a **** emotional trip that I'm gonna be stewing on for weeks bc idfk what the hell even happened in half of it but I know I'm sad about it.

Per a friend's suggestion we started watching Assassination Classroom last night. The premise revolves around a middle school teacher and his class of flunk-outs, who have been tasked with assassinating him. The humor is pretty absurdist, as you might imagine, and I love it. The plot is actually pretty good too!

Also watched the first Pokemon movie because they were running it all day on Twitch and WHAT IS THIS LEAKING FROM MY TEAR DUCTS AM I SOBBING OR
and also as I'm typing this they're running the original series. Pretty late in RBY right now but I'm glad I'm able to catch part of the marathon!

^Oh, man. We're on the same page, when it comes to crying over silly Pokemon movies, buddy.

People make fun of the Pokemon movies, but they got their moments. I mean, I'm not some baby, here, who just cries over nothing, but...that bit during the Mew v. Mewtwo fight, when poor dumb little Pikachu sees Ash get all frigged up...Pikachu slowly realising his friend of together-forever is now gone forever, and he weeps with pure heartbreak. Gets me every time-------tearing up just thinking about it, actually.

boo---------------ten thousand evil spiders in a human suit (*spoiler alert--------the spiders all hate each other, and themselves most of all*)

Tne poor little puke. His bestest friend in the whole wide world has just died, and yet Pikachu...he's trying so hard to be a brave little trooper. Ash's tough beautiful boy, right? But he misses Ash so much already. It's awful.

(EDIT: ^Also, I acknowledge that song is beautiful, homey. I don't know anything else by Blessid Union of Souls. I would like to give them more of a chance. We all have so little time.

boo---------------ten thousand evil spiders in a human suit (*spoiler alert--------the spiders all hate each other, and themselves most of all*)